"Over 14,000 sailors and Marines from 31 ships and 11 nations took part in the biggest amphibious exercise in a decade. Danger Room was there, cameras rolling.

One of the staging points for the exercise, known as Bold Alligator, was the U.S.S. Wasp, a big-deck amphibious assault ship weighing in at 40,000 tons. On Saturday, it was floating about 60 miles off the coast of North Carolina — which meant the only way on was by helicopter, taking off from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

Luckily, we arrived on the Wasp just in time for the Navy's senior officer, Adm. Jonathan Greenert, to address the sailors and Marines of the ship about the importance of the Navy and Marine Corps once again training how to storm a beach together — essentially, washing the barnacles off 10 years of Marine land warfare in Afghanistan and Iraq. Greenert, as he explained, has been preparing for this day since 2006.

The exercise is premised on coming to the aid of a friendly nation, called Amberland, which finds itself overrun with insurgents — luckily, near its coasts, where the Navy/Marine Corps team can rush in. But don't think that Bold Alligator is just about ships."